our fears are different here
by semiotics
Summary: it's in my blood, i just can't help it. / the nextgen and the people they build homes in.


**written for:** jane, (kingslayers) because we've been talking about nextgen kids for _ages_ , and i only just found this in my drafts. she gave me a list of location prompts once because i said i wanted to write a series of drabbles about the nextgen and their friend circles. every drabble in this collection is dedicated to her, but this one especially since dirtbag kids are in her wheelhouse.

 **notes:** okay, a few basic things to start with. i do not own harry potter and do not wish to make a profit from it. i also don't own the strokes' modern age, from which i've taken the title and description of this collection. furthermore, several of these characters are either interpretations of or expansions on a group of ocs created both on skype and in the velomarp tag on tumblr by jane, jp, ailidh, pearl, and myself. it's been a few years since then, so a lot of details have changed in my head, but the basic concepts are still there, so they deserve credit. moving into the fic itself, my james sirius and his merry band of idiots are not, strictly speaking, good people, so you will often see them engaging in behaviors i don't necessarily condone. also, it might be useful to note (just for background for the story) that my james is a squib who went to hogwarts long enough to complete his OWLs, but then dropped out. i'm afraid that you won't get much in the way of actual introductions of these characters because they have no interest in introducing themselves and the manager is too frightened to ask, but if you've got any questions about them, feel free to PM me! the collection as a whole will feature every nextgen character and their friends, in no particular order, and will be updated when the mood strikes me. enjoy and please leave a review!

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james + dirtbags ; magical menagerie

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The day James starts his job at the Magical Menagerie, his entire crew crowds into the shop at the crack of dawn and stay until just long enough after the designated closing time that the manager starts giving them dirty looks. If it were anyone else, their behavior might be considered sweet. But it's hard to look at Iarfhlaith Finnigan in all of his tattooed, sharp-eyed glory and use that word with any semblance of a straight face. At first, the manager doesn't mind too much. The youngest one, a tall girl with skin as dark as the fur around her neck, is polite and hands him dirty Sickles that she pulls from the bottom of her pockets whenever one of the others breaks something. But within minutes, the rest of them are shouting and swearing and daring each other to eat the owl pellets and generally scaring off his customers. He almost files for his pension right then and there.

Around noon, James sells a toad to a particularly handsome father and his particularly rat-faced son. Vivienne spends the whole transaction making increasingly more lewd faces at the man, Jackie starts a betting ring on which house the kid will end up in, ("Bet he's in Slytherin, he's got the same fucking ratface as all those Slytherin berks," she shouts with the same lack of subtlety that comes with everything she does) and Finn lurks in the shadows threateningly.

"I think he was into me," Vivienne declares cheerfully after the twosome pay hurriedly and leave.

"You wish," James says, counting the coins and stuffing them neatly into the register, hoping the manager doesn't see the two Galleons that neatly slip from his fingers into his sleeve.

"What, you don't think so?"

Eoghan snorts. "Viv, he's obviously married."

Vivienne shrugs. "No ring, so he's _obviously_ not very proud of it. Maybe he just needs a little something to, uh," she winks, as if anyone doesn't know what's was talking about, "spice up his marriage."

"Oh, he had a ring," Finn says with a devilish grin. He holds out his palm, and in the center sits a gold band with the kind of diamond that would be pretty if you were a bored socialite with no prospects for marriage other than the pockmarked man who lives down the street, but in Finn's rough hands just looks like a cheap sequin.

Jackie lets out a low whistle. "Damn, what a rock."

Ade sighs exasperatedly. "Yeah, if you're cheap and desperate."

"Damn, Jacks, she got you."

"Fuck off, James."

"Don't you have a job to do?" It's this pointed reminder from Ade that tears James away from where he's got Jackie in a chokehold.

"Oh, yeah, right," he says, letting go and dusting himself off. "You're lucky she reminded me, Jacks, otherwise I'd have had you that time."

"Yeah, sure, you keep telling yourself that."

James flips her the bird, walks over to an owlcage and begins dusting it. The manager begins to look as though he wishes he'd looked more closely at James' resume before hiring the Potter boy without a second thought.

One aisle over, Eoghan's found a way of tapping his wand on the owl cages to make music notes and now absentmindedly taps out the notes of some punk song the manager is sure got banned from the radios but all of them seem to know. The manager breathes a sigh of relief at James' face, a kind of tense apprehension as he watches Eoghan charm the cages, but feels his blood pressure rise once more when all of them start singing along. He didn't realize it was _possible_ to swear that many times in that many combinations.

The manager looks at the clock. Really, it's almost thirty minutes past closing time, they ought to be heading out by now. He wishes he could kick them out, but it seems like it would be quite rude to do so, since James is still steadily counting Knuts behind the counter. Until, of course he starts singing along as well, and suddenly they're all a _band_ or something.

"Oi," Finn shouts, suddenly stopping singing. "Goldstein's reading?" he reminds them. Suddenly, before the manager can believe his luck, they're all shuffling out the door together, a few of them still shouting that horrid song, and he's left alone with James Potter.

James acts innocent for a few minutes, staring resolutely down at the money as he continues to file it away ( _Really, what is taking him so long?_ The manager wonders, not seeing how the boy's pockets have begun to bulge). Finally, after even the clinking of coins is too much noise for the manager to bear, he waves him away. "Oh, go on," he says, and before he can even shout "Seven AM tomorrow!" the boy has sprinted out the door, shouting the same song as the rest.

The manager sits down on a chair, coating the back of his robes in owl feces stains that he won't notice until tomorrow, and thinks that he's got a long summer ahead of him.


End file.
